Scoring PowerPoints

I think this is a very good article discussing some of the pitfalls of PowerPoint presentations and how to focus students on the most important aspects.  I particularly liked the author's emphasis on the importance of the ideas and logic in the presentation.  What I like to call "substance over form".  While the best presentations have both, if you don't have good substance, the presentation is not worth viewing in my opinion. 

Explaining to students that  80% of their time should be spent on research and thinking and  20% of their time spent on the presentation will help students better understand the goal of the assignment    I agree with the author that there would be great benefit in having students prepare research papers in addition to their presentations, so that they focus on the ideas and not just the presentation.  The author makes an excellent point about how the PowerPoint software "can subtly channel teams toward compression and oversimplification."

The delivery part of the presentation is also important.  The author's focus on maintaining eye contact, avoid reading slides aloud, and speaking with conviction are all excellent suggestions for students. 

Finally, the author's suggestion to offer exemplars to students is very important.  I am the type of student who always wants an example.  The more the better.  If an instructor takes the time to point out the strengths and weaknesses of the examples it is even more valuable in understanding the goal of the assignment.  I prefer to learn from other student's mistakes rather than my own. 

There wasn't anything that I really disagreed with in the article.  However, the extent to which you could incorporate all of the suggestions of this author will depend on the level of your students.